Hi Les,

Wow, that was a very old message. Please accept my apology if I misquoted you, but that's how I understood your article.

One thing I learned over the years was not to step on the toes connected to the ass you might have to kiss someday. Obviously you were a casualty of this rule and that's quite bad, but it is also true that a lot of toes will need breaking in order to get a formal response from MS.

Unfortunately that response, will not be pleasant because it's something that will have to be pulled like teeth.

If this was something that happened 5 years ago then it would be over by now, but so far what I see is that MS, for some very intriguing reason, is not letting go of vfp. At least not for another vstudio generation. There's a saying in venezuela that goes something like "they don't wash and don't lend their sink either".

Interestingly, the vfp team at MS has managed to be responsive enough to evolution so that vfp supports current technologies. Obviously vfp has managed to maintain a revenue level that warranted ongoing development of the product so far. Otherwise, I see no reason for them not to pull the plug and get over with it.

Right now, when confronted with "serious" database development there are two possible tool sets out of MS' chest: vb/sql and vfp. The vb/sql combo will generate more revenue to MS than vfp, so what incentive do they have to push vfp?

Now MS is giving MSDE away for free, which really makes this melange puzzling. Now the field is level to some extent: mid-size databases can use either vb/msde or vfp, none of which generate residual income to microsoft, so now the matter boils down to technology - which one is more suitable?

It would help a lot if the media, instead of sucking up to MS et al and hype every new idiotic idea, would be more "journalistic" and inquiring and ASK the right questions, but that's not happening in this industry.

The latest idiocy in my book is the CLR and how MS is flaunting the fact that it will support a plethora of obscure languages that I think are used even less than vfp (how many of us know any Eiffel developers?).

So I guess that in the near future we will see vstudio ads that mention Algol and Smalltalk with clr and nothing about vb? I'd like to see that.

Now, going back to your message, WHY do you think MS favors vb?

As far as the challenge, perhaps it is time that the vfp community does this on its own. We have a couple of very talented vb developers right here. Let's make the benchmark on our own.

Of course, as soon as the results are out, the vb community will cry foul arguing that all was done by biased vfp developers and maybe then will we get some real takers.

Perhaps we should put our pockets together and actually BUY space in magazines in order to publish articles about vfp.

Right now unfortunately I don't have the time or the knowledge to colaborate in such an effort, but this would be the kind of activist organization I would be happy to give some $200/year just to see it happen. I'm sure there are others that feel the same way.

Promoting vfp here is a moot point because we're all bought on its benefits. It's outside where this kind of publicity must be made visible, and for the time being, I think money is the only part that's lacking.

In the profox mailing list there was mention about buying the product from MS, like dBase was bought from Borland by a group of users. Jim Duffy mentioned this recently here and his message was met with nothing but jokes (which disappointed me to some extent).

Well, people, I think WE are the only joke here, whining amongst ourselves about the demise of vfp and nothing more.

Alex

PS: I usually don't CC others when replying to messages, I'm sorry if my doing it this time bothered anyone, but I think this issue is worth doing something about.

>Hi Alex,
>
> I just read your note to a UT member saying that I believe that VB users have to use SQL. That's not quite true, and not quite what I said. Please allow me to clarify my position.
>
> I don't think that Microsoft favors VB because VB users have to use SQL. They don't. They can use MDBs. But the performance is so poor with large volumes of data that migration to SQL is essential. In the case of VFP, migration to SQL is not required when data tables grow. In fact, DBF access if generally faster with VFP than with SQL, especially if some sort of VFP server is used, like the one I described in the article "A FoxPro Server" on my website, www.lespinter.com.
>
> I don't dislike SQL. In fact, in my work for clients, I use VFP and SQL exclusively. I haven't built a project using a DBF in a year. VFP with SQL is an excellent combination. But users aren't FORCED to use SQL. That, in my opinion, is the reason that Microsoft doesn't support FoxPro, and why all of us whose lives depend on the viability of FoxPro are in a panic.
>
> So why am I making such a big deal about this? It's because Microsoft has not mentioned FoxPro in its advertising, except for a few scraps, for five years, and our careers have suffered enormously as a result. I have never, ever read an article in which anyone demonstrated that VB was better than, or even equal to, VFP, for building database applications. The very suggestion is laughable.
>
> Yet if you read advertisements about Visual Studio, the .NET technology, and anything else that determines our future, FoxPro is specifically excluded from most of the literature. I've seen two-page ads for Visual Studio that didn't even CONTAIN the word FoxPro. I've considered using a blowup of one of them as the backdrop for my DevCon booth with a "Where's the Fox?" caption splashed across it.
>
> I was told only a week ago by the guy who's organizing the big ASP conference in Las Vegas next year that FoxPro specifically doesn't support Microsoft's new technologies, and that it's the only language in Visual Studio that doesn't. No one at Microsoft will say one way or the other.
>
> I've tried to get an answer to this question, to considerable personal detriment. At the Orlando DevCon, during my presentation, I offered to complete publicly against any VB programmer in the world, based on a specification that didn't unfairly favor either language, in building a typical LAN database application. No takers. Since I made that offer, I've never heard from Microsoft again, and haven't even received a Beta copy of FoxPro. So much for asking for the truth to be told.
>
> I'd like to know why FoxPro is excluded from Visual Studio advertising. I'd like to know why Visual Studio books don't mention FoxPro. I want Microsoft to tell us what their real plans are. And even more, I'd loke to know why, precisely why, they don't just write a big article that states why VB is better than VFP for building database applications. I can't imagine a juicier target. They can't either. That's why there has been no published justification for their actions. They just changed the subject five years ago, and continue to act as if nothing happened. I want some public debate. If they're going to end our careers, I want them to justify their decision.
>
> Another thread in one of the VB forums says something like "Why is Les so upset about something that happened five years ago?" Well, the Holocaust happened 60 years ago, and some people are still quite upset.
>
> There's a department within NASA called NEAT - the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking office. Their job is to tell us when an asteroid is going to hit the earth and kill us all. I just wish Microsoft could be forced to do the same thing with whatever they know that they're not telling us.
>
>Les Pinter